For some years now, I have been at the helm of a small strategic consulting company that carries out innovation projects, mainly digital. We are a group of about 20 people, on average under 35, who carry out a purely intellectual work. On the occasion of the recent lockdown, due to the characteristics of our work we were able to switch smoothly to a remote-work mode, right off ensuring that all our projects could be fully operational. This allowed us to shift our attention from the day-to-day aspects of activity management to medium or long-term ones, related mainly to the understanding of the transformations taking place and to risk mitigation.

As it came clear to many, the changes we are undergoing revolve around the theme of uncertainty or, more precisely, the awareness of having been hurled into a condition where we no longer have the capability to see or plan anything for the immediate future. This is what we are struggling to accept, because some of the deepest connotations of our lives are associated with the future, progress, evolution and, above all, trust in what they imply.

Even the business world – normally dwelling in its own competitive dynamics and often ‘apparently’ remote from these realities – is now facing a period of uncertainty, in which the fragile nature of the capitalist system – built on the very optimistic idea of continuous growth – is becoming evident in it’s fullness.
the very idea on which the social evolution is based, from when man started to use fire and sleep in caves, to when we synthesized life-saving drugs and so on.
society and life itself cannot ignore the idea of progress as a decrease in the unpredictability of tomorrow.

Yet, to those like me who were born in Italy at the beginning of the Eighties, this feeling of uncertainty is familiar : we were born in a dystopic world, where you had take a clear position: this or that side of the wall.
On our life path, the absence of certainties has not only been a transient element but, rather, the foundation to a new perception of the time we live in: a present continuously blasting into its thousand diversities and facets, while the future flattens into an elusive timeline.

It is sadly ironic, then, that just as my generation starts to fill decision-making positions, a sudden and uncontrollable global event reminds everyone that the future is uncertain and that what we built is not forever.

I believe the message in this unprecedented happening is not pessimistic.
On the contrary, I rather think this might be the moment to rethink some of the dynamics originally generated within the idea of progress that today appear exacerbated by a ‘consumerist bulimia’ from which capitalism has failed to part.

The ruling class – together with scholars and not without the contribution of those who concretely conduct business on a daily basis – will have to try to find ideas alternative to capitalism, identifying ways to operate not only for an economic profit but also for a collective return.

The BCorp and the so-called ‘triple bottom line’ are an attempt in this direction. Nevertheless, there are no simple ways and shortcuts. It will be necessary to proceed through small attempts and see which model will emerge first.

In this transition toward a new and still unidentified business and organizational model, there are, however, some points of interest already visible today and deserving, in my experience, particular attention.

The generational alternation is certainly one of the most critical ones, and the closest to my heart.
In fact, new generations are bringing innovative values systems into business organizations – rarely equipped to welcome them in a functional way. The dominant themes are a work-life balance, continuous professional growth and, particularly in some markets and sectors, rewarding retributions.
These topics – legitimate and sometimes necessary- are not, however, topics always coherent with the economic and financial logic ruling companies. It is therefore necessary to define ways for their progressive integration, through tools that integrating this functional change into the company’s mission.

Among these tools: goal-oriented – rather than time-oriented – work and remote working.
Solutions apparently within the reach of many people, unfortunately clashing with, on the one hand, obsolete labour regulations, and, on the other, with a cultural resistance hardly moving beyond well-known logic of control and micro-management.

There is, however, a last and further element that is crucial to realize a robust change: a renewed and deep trust between employer and employee allowing flexibility and transparency in both directions, based on the assumption employer and the employee are sufficiently equipped – culturally and emotionally – to accept each other’s point of view.

These are real necessities in a post Covid world.